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There was a crackle, like static electricity woven through the air; anyone standing within a hundred meters would have felt their hairs prick up on their skin, if indeed they were still standing. There was a moment of silence, and then a popping sound; air was displaced as suddenly a great tentacled ship appeared in the air above the Sword Coast in screaming freefall. Some bodies rained downwards, but hardly enough to have once filled the ship. These were the lucky ones, the ones who had a chance of survival; anyone else, anyone who remained inside the falling ship, was almost certainly doomed.
This fact was what spurred Kujo Tenn, Wizard of Waterdeep, to burn his way out the side of the ship, mind flayer parasite in his head be damned; he planned on casting Feather Fall or Fly on himself once he was out, but he found once he was already floundering through the air that the spell would not come, or rather, that his command of the Weave had somehow shrunk to the point where he could no longer cast either spell.
F—
Long habit cut off the cuss before it could form; it wasn’t appropriate for a wizard of any level to use such language, and Tenn had an example to set, and he wasn’t just any wizard, he was the Wizard of Waterdeep, with two capital letters, he had a reputation to upkeep, even if just in his own mind.
Wind whipped past his face. The earth was still impossibly far below him, but getting closer by the second; he knew the best timing for application of Feather Fall in this instance but he still couldn’t get the spell to cast. The Weave fell through his fingers like water through a sieve; he felt like a beginner again, just barely learning how to cast a spell, relying more on instinct than on experience.
The ground was getting bigger. Nothing Tenn was familiar with was working anymore. He could feel the Weave around him, exactly as it was before; he could feel the Weave within him, still hungry, but dormant, for now. There was no way for him to use either of those at present; he had achieved terminal velocity and was now shooting steadily directly to the ground as fast as he could possibly go.
If that wasn’t a metaphor for the way Tenn’s life had gone over the past few decades, he didn’t know what was. But his business was not to look at how awful situations reflected his life; his business was to not die here, and unless he got on with it he’d turn into a little red smear on the ground and then explode. He needed to find another way. Maybe if he could find some already-active spell, he could hijack it to save his life?
Tenn scanned the vast seaside, growing more and more detailed by the second; a little bit past the seashore, he noted an ancient, pulsating rune, one promising to carry you through to its exact copy—
Perfect, it would take Tenn somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere that wasn’t several miles off of the ground, but at the moment he wasn’t picky. He reached out for the Weave within, felt the pattern of the spell, called it into him—
He fell faster, which was technically an impossibility and a clear sign that something had gone wrong, very wrong, with his spell. Judging by the height and the speed at which he was falling, it wouldn’t be wrong for a huge amount of time—for him.
He accelerated towards the rune—the rock seemed to swallow him whole and then he was choking on dust and Weave, trapped somewhere between stone and portal. He couldn’t breathe, as a statue couldn’t breathe; he wondered if this was what Riku felt like during his attacks, and then hated himself for wondering, hated himself for comparing them. Tenn had brought this on himself. He didn’t deserve to even wonder. Instead, he focused on the Weave around him. It did connect to other places, dozens if not hundreds of them, and Tenn shuddered to think of what might happen if he died here, of all the places the explosion might touch. He had to get out—somehow—he had to—
He could still move, which was a boon. He could just about hear what was going on in the outside world—crashing, screaming, burning, the typical reaction to a massive burning myconid ship suddenly crashing onto the seaside—which was another. Not the crash, of course (and definitely not all the future mindflayers deposited here!) but the fact that he could hear anything at all. There might be a chance for him to get out—somehow. If he could just make contact with the outside world…
If he could just make contact quickly, before he turned into a mindflayer. And if he could find a cleric or somebody to get the worm out before he transformed. And then he had to get back to Baldur’s Gate…
The message from Riku burned through his head again. He had discovered something, something amazing, something he needed to share with Tenn as soon as possible. Tenn had been on his way to the meeting place when he’d gotten scooped up by the ship; as much of a relief as it was that Riku hadn’t gotten captured with him, Tenn was still rather extremely unhappy that their meeting had been interrupted. Some people had no manners, mindflayers especially. It wasn’t even that Tenn particularly wanted to see Riku. It just reflected poorly on him if he missed their first meeting in seven years, that was all, Tenn didn’t want to come off as unprofessional in any way, it wasn’t like he’d missed Riku—
The Weave warped and burned around him, crushing him into nothingness; his body burned from lack of air; something in his heart twisted and ached; his head pounded with exhaustion or with parasite; he wanted to vomit, but nothing came up. He moved as close as he could to what he thought was the rune on the rock and waited, conserving his strength: he would get out, he would, he had to. He would get out, he would not turn into a mind flayer, he would reschedule that meeting with Riku. And he would also figure out what had happened to his skill with the Weave, because this was both embarrassing and new, and he definitely couldn’t let on to Riku about that.
Tenn grit his teeth, ignored the discomfort, and waited to find a way out of the magic and rock and glowing darkness.